Army Officer

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There are some traitors in our midst though. They are the leadership of the Labour Party and the trade unions. They pretended that they fought for the interests of the workers and youth. What did they do? 99% of them backed up Thatcher's war in the South Atlantic as they back up the war in Ireland.

We must get rid of these fakers and replace them It seems that we also need a clear-out in the LPYS - our own organisation. They refused to build a movement to withdraw the fleet, saying it was not This war must not be forgotten in the YS. We should write to Socialist Youth declaring our opposiThe war in the South Atlantic is not over either.

While there is a British task force in the South Atlantic or any other place, we can never be free. A "Labour Committee for Withdrawal" has been set up by Ken Livingstone, Peter Tatchell and other left wing Labour Party leaders. We should support this committee and inject our support for the defeat of with genuine workers' leaders.

possible.

tion to their position. the British bosses.

Conference once again failed to take up the relevant issues of Ireland - not that it managed to generate lively debate on either anyway.

It' is easy to forget the fact that there's a bitter TREWORKWAS NI!

BUT I JUST CARRIED ON AS IF I WERE IN JAVE HILARY National conferences aren't that far off and as youth officer of the Labour Committee on Ireland i think there is no time to waste in organising for them now. If you are going to summer camp then why not come DIDNOT KNOW IT.

DE CCURSE HILARY You ARE SURE YOU ANTRUST MY soon.

There will be a mailing to all YS branches -from Walworth Road from the LCI offering speakers to all YS branches - so that should be a spur to push a proper anti-imperialist posiIreland. So if you want more details or want to join the LCI, contact: Labour Committee on Ireland, BM Box 5355, London WC1N 3XX.

PETE CASHMAN National Youth Officer, Labour Committee on Ireland.

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A group of Class Fighter supporters hit Brixton LOVUVI *Move this resolution in policies to carry out Milit- your LPYS branch: "This ant's "socialist transforma- LPYS branch notes the tion". Whilst liberation will lack of discussion of gay only fully arrive under rights at recent national Page ROCKING the Casbah with a bit of 'billy, reggae, roll and disco, the Clash came to Brixton one Sunday. Much soul searching (retrospection), Joe Strummer AWOL in Paris . exit Nick (Topper) Headon they finally made it.

The Clash in the summer of '82 - a year after the riots, revolutionary struggles in Latin America, the mushrooming growth of CND, 13 kids killed by plactic bullets in Northern Ireland.

The Clash in 1982, willing and able • to go where other bands of the same beginnings now wouldn't go.

Nowadays it is trendy to be fun, fun 'apolitical' - let's dance, but don't bring politics into it' Dancing is fun, it beats meetings every night. Whilst there are purists -the trendy ones who think dance is dance and the turgid ones who think politics is politics, so unethical to mix the two - the Clash are the real intellectuals among THE Labour Party's National Executive Committee at a recent meeting decided to include a proposal for the age of consent for gay men to be lowered from 21, which it is at present, to 18, in its policy for the next General Election.

They voted down proposal for lowering it to 16, which is the age of consent for non-gays and effectively the age of consent for lesbians (most laws to do with gays only mention gay men, the idea being that women only have sexual feelings as a result of men's sexual feelings, so for lesbians to have sex indepus! Quite able to produce political dance.

Actually there wasn't much dancing on Sunday. Pogey pogo never was fashionable, it was more subtle.

Now the Financial Times (how amazing did someone once tell me Joe Strummer's pa was a stockbroka?) and. you can't find a better judge of culture this side of NME - said the gig lacked excitement. This was because the audience was too old (own up now if you were a Clash fan in "78 - that makes you at least 21-22!), too white, and the Clash were passive and not at all provocative or riotous.

Danced

Of course all youth go to gigs for is to gob and vandalise and Brixton isn't Brixton without riots, is it?

I danced when wasn't too overawed, or stretching to look once more at Joe Strummer's hair (or lack of it) or gasp at Paul Simonon. were outraged by this "joke" as they no doubt would have been: if he had referred to "nig-nogs" or "dagos"

Unfortunately, there is a lot of this backwardness on gay rights within the self-confessed "Marxists" who run the Labour Party Young Socialists. For as long as ! have been going to LPYS National: Conferences, and probably for longer, there has never been a debate on gay rights.

1981 was the year we came closest: there were six resolutions sent in on gay rights (more than there were on some of the subjects which were discussed) but still there was no debate.

If others didn't then they were probably studying the backdrop of slides which accompanied each song.

A Latin Americano opening brought the Clash on stage and then they launched into London's Calling. The set, with two encores, was tight (that's music jargon for together, well performed, don't you know) and new drummer Terry Chimes got into the swing of things quite well.

Not so many numbers off the newest album Combat Rock - if you're lucky there'll be a review of it in the next issue, and if you're doubly lucky there'll be a next issue.

Joe Strummer's vocals were excellent, and Mick " can play a whole chord' Jones managed to sing his song that means so much to him, 'Stay Free'. And Paul 'Oh, isn't he gorgeous' (he is, he is!)Simonon based away to Guns of Brixton. Rock the Casbah needed a bit of practicing or a went to see the Clash in July Judith Bonner reports....

guest keyboard player or something, but all in all they managed to give a flow to the set mingling older numbers with newer in a very complementary fashion.

It was very political, each song being accompanied by a slide show with shots of the riots, victims of oppression in World peoples, Clash graphics and much more.

Strummer also provided some humour, at one point asking any intellectuals in the audience to shout 'Oi!' They were the Clash, no fuss, no chat, yet there was an air of suspense, waiting for a voice to scream. They're a political band, class conscious - not an easy thing to be in an industry shackled to commercialism and profiteering that says fuck the politics and wants only to sell the records.

We ali come up against walls. The Clash have climbed a lot, or just pushed them over. The Clash Casbah Club may be in your area now so go rock it. nuclear family way of living.

Socialists shouldn't accept the limitations of this view but should fight against them for the right of everyone to choose their own lifestyle and sexuality.

It seems that the main reason that gays get beaten up is that their attackers are gay but haven't been able to come out - to admit their sexuality to themselves and other people. By attacking gay people - "queer bashing" - they want to stamp out their own gayness and assert their heterosexual "normality"

Sexuality and the family is an especially important discriminațion now. We agree that it can only be a truly socialist society (not like the so-called "communist" states in Eastern Europe) that will give us the chance to completely liberate all oppressed groups.

Accept

But we don't accept that this means that all these oppressed groups should stop worrying about their own particular oppression and instead put all their energies into winning a lahraur aovernment committed to socialist the LPYS is an organisation that fights for all oppressed youth and so draw these youth in and build a mass socialist youth movement.

There are several things you can do:

*Join the Labour Campaign for Gay Rights. The LCGR is campaigning for the labour movement as a whole to take gay rights seriously.

*Get your LPYS branch to: invite a speaker from LCGR.